Kind of a big deal

Soooo, turns out Jayden fractured his arm.  Not awesome.  To be fair, we don't know that for sure, but we think it's an accurate diagnosis.  Turns out Jayden cannot  fly after all.  At least not without support.  Yesterday we were unloading groceries and lunch and Jayden tried to climb into his highchair, with the table on.  He's done this millions of times.  While we always discourage it, we haven't been able to prevent him from doing it.  Since hindsight is 20/20, we should have just taken the table off whenever he's not in it.  But we didn't.  And so he tried to climb in.  And he slipped.  And fell from the top of the highchair.  He was pretty upset and seemed to be favoring his right arm.  We kept looking at it and asking him if it hurt.  He couldn't really tell us.  But he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't nap, he wouldn't really calm down.  So we finally took him for a drive and he passed out for close to two hours.

Sleeping beauty.

He fell on it again later and cried - more than he normally would from falling - but it still wasn't bruised or swollen and he was still mostly his happy self.  This morning he was running around the house, we were about to leave to go to the park, and he fell into a soft bench that we have.  And he cried almost hysterically - way  more than he should have for falling into something so soft.  So our trip to the park got derailed and off to urgent care we went.

Two hours later, our suspicions were confirmed.  He has a small fracture in his radius (the bone that goes from the elbow to the thumb), what the physician's assistant called a "buckle fracture."  Basically that means that when he landed the bone (radius) hit into the wrist and the ends kind of splayed out a little.  According to childrenshospital.org, it means: One side of the bone bends (buckles) upon itself without breaking the other side.

At urgent care we had to wait for quiet a while, but then they took xrays and wrapped him up in a splint.  He was NOT excited about the splint at first, and definitely not the sling, but he warmed up to it eventually.

Waiting patiently to be examined.

Mommy, Take. It. Off.
(he did actually pull off the cushioning once - I don't know what the nurse was thinking when he half wrapped it and then left for two minutes.  I used my "medical expertise" (aka my experience wrapping my own ankles in high school) to rewrap him.)

I am NOT happy, Mommy.

We walked over to lunch afterwards, and as soon as he was fed he began feeling a lot better.  Towards the end of lunch he looked over at me and held up his left arm and said "Mommy, dis one?"  And I had to explain that his left arm was healthy so he didn't need a splint on his left arm.  He of course then said "mommy, it hurts..."  A few minutes later he was standing in the middle of the restaurant (a little taco place, nothing fancy) jammin' to some 80s pop song and saying "daddy, dance me!"  Clearly he recovered well.  He passed out in the car ride home, as we expected/hoped, and slept for close to two hours.

When he woke up we hung out on the couch for a bit and then we ran around outside, playing with one of the little lemons from our tree and throwing Jasmine's toy for her.  I honestly think Carmen and I felt worse about the whole thing than he did.

The physician's assistant gave us her opinion, but we'll wait for a call tomorrow morning from the radiology expert.  Once we get that call, we have a list of pediatric orthopedic surgeons at Children's Hospital who we will call to schedule an appointment to get the official word.  We're both really hoping that he gets a brace as opposed to a cast.  But we'll see what the doctor says.  Interestingly, the physician's assistant said that kids Jayden's age have a lot of cartilage so it can be very difficult to feel anything.

After leaving the urgent care office, I suddenly wondered if the physician's assistant was evaluating us for child abuse at the same time.  I mean, not that it really appeared that Jayden was abused, but that anytime a small child comes in with a broken bone I'm sure it crosses their mind.  I am grateful that no questions were asked.  As I was holding Jayden after he got the splint and sling on, he was pretty sad and was wailing.  A single tear fell down his right cheek and onto my arm.  Which then made me start crying.  It sucks to feel helpless.  Except that I guess we aren't helpless since we're getting him medical treatment.  But I can't just fix it, which is what I'd like to do.  Thank goodness he recovered quickly and actually turned out to be pretty happy the rest of the day.

Learning to drink one-handed since the splint prevents him from gripping most things.

In other news...
At daycare, Julia puts Jayden on the potty seat a few times a day.  They get a "premio" (prize) whenever they sit on the toilet.  She's been doing this for a while, but this past week it actually started to show results!  On Wednesday he actually went potty in the potty three times.  And on Thursday twice.  And on Friday once.  Of course over the weekend he didn't do it at all.  But I wasn't as good as I should have been.  When he is home for the long Thanksgiving weekend I am going to have to be very good and put him on the potty as often as I can.  It definitely disrupts the day, but it's worth it if we can get him potty trained.  He's smart enough to figure it out, it's just a matter of his parents taking the time to teach him.  It'll happen.  It has to happen.

On Saturday we did get to see some Christmas decorations.  Since it is almost Thanksgiving after all, it was past time for Christmas decor.  Jayden enjoyed the lights and stars on the giant tree:

Southern California at its finest.  Palm trees in the foreground and a giant Christmas tree in the background with a stained glass ceiling.  

Julia said it was fine for Jayden to come tomorrow, which is good.  I have a couple of meetings in the morning, but I'm hoping to take him to the doctor in the afternoon.  Hopefully there's an appointment open for us.

I'm sure there's something I'm missing, but between the excitement of the fracture, the lack of sleep (Jayden hasn't slept past 6 am for the last few week or so and has been waking up in the middle of the night off and on for the past week), I can't think of what it might be.  I'll just keep remembering to take pictures so at least I can share some stories.  Happy Thanksgiving week!